Re: Will a compass work on the moon?

Hi Amanda,

The answer is not really.

The Moon does not have a strong simple field like the Earth, which lets you 
find north and south in most places (unless you're too near the poles, or a 
large deposit of iron ore, for instance).

Instead, the Moon has  a weak, patchy and blotchy magnetic field. Mostly it 
is just a random jumble but in some places there is a more coherent field 
that seems to be related to big impact craters, but on the opposite side of 
the Moon from the impact! These patches can be a few hundred km across, so 
perhaps you could find your way back to a Lunar base if it was in one of 
these and you hadn't gone too far?


http://www.urel.berkeley.edu/UREL_1/Campusnews/berkeleyan/1998/0909/moon.ht
ml